Introduction:
Discover Rebekah, chosen as a wife for Isaac, and as a matriarch for the Jewish Nation to come.
Q1. Inspired by the virtuous Rebekah, the woman by the well, we explore the changing landscape of equality and ideological change. In our lives, how do we navigate the sometimes turbulent flow of social change?
Q2. How do we protect ourselves as we embrace change and why do we sometimes resist it? What are the virtues given to us by God that make these transitions not just desirable but also our obligation?
Commentary: Rabbi Jo Beilby
The Beauty that Heals the World
As the behaviour of a parent teaches and shapes the child as it grows, so too do the virtues of our forebears shape the community we build. The virtues necessary to perform the mitzvot are all commanded to be chosen for Isaac. For our forebears and the community today, this parshah prioritises the mitzvot necessary to bring humanity back into unity with its creator. Virtues necessary to create a humanity, an identity that seeks to know the source of all being, that seeks God, that heals the world - Tikkun Olam.
Virtue – Lessons from the Well
Perhaps we're at a crossroads. Perhaps equality and discrimination and a lot of the issues that face us today are matters of virtue. As ideological changes translate into social change, how do we support ourselves and our communities? How do we make sure that our virtues are the things that we bring with us, that support us, not the things that we leave behind?
Heavenly Matches and The Freedom to Reach Out to God
We've heard the saying matches are made in heaven. Well this comes from this parshah! God makes a sacred partnership for Isaac and Rebekah. This is of particular significance because it is a the first place where a prayer for divine guidance occurs in the Torah. The servant of Abraham prays for luck in finding Isaac a wife. What do we learn
from this? That everyone has the freedom and the right to petition God; everyone can speak from the heart.
Change – The Universal Constant
Nothing is as certain as change. At the beginning of the parshah, Sarah dies from grief. At the end of the parshah Abraham, also dies. In the middle though, we are given Rebecca, who draws her pitcher of water; water to bring together that great thing that unites all of life that flows from one generation in to the next. Nothing is as certain as change.
Questions:
Q3. Is the ability to heal the world part of our identity?
Q4. Can a man replace his mother with a wife?
Text study:
Genesis 24: 67
Isaac then brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he took Rebekah as his wife. Isaac loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death.
Rashi
האהלה שרה אמו INTO HIS MOTHER SARAH’S TENT — He brought her into the tent and she became exactly like his mother Sarah — that is to say, the words signify as much as, [And he brought her into the tent] and, behold, she was Sarah, his mother). For whilst Sarah was living, a light had been burning in the tent from one Sabbath eve to the next, there was always a blessing in the dough (a miraculous increase) and a cloud was always hanging over the tent (as a divine protection), but since her death all these had stopped. However, when Rebecca came, they reappeared” (Genesis Rabbah 60:16).
https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.24.67.1
אחרי אמו [AND ISAAC WAS COMFORTED] AFTER HIS MOTHER’S DEATH — It is natural that whilst a man’s mother is living he is wrapped up in her, but when she dies he finds comfort in his wife (Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 32).
https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.24.67.2